Good riddance to MRL.! While most of the employees were decent guys (mostly former BN & Milwaukee who didn't want to move), management were a bunch of pricks.. Countless times BN trains were held out of Laurel yard waiting on a MRL train still 3 hours out.. they would "band" BN employees from their properties for the smallest rule infractions. it was hard to watch them rob the BN blind while our complaints fell on deaf ears.. I could go on & on..
Rubber rooms were one of BN's most f**ked up moves ever.. !
-- Edited by FMB on Tuesday 11th of January 2022 07:58:52 AM
A fellow I went to high school with, came from a railroad family, his father was a C&O BOT. He worked for the Red Team out of high school, then took a transfer to Mecca but left when the state of Virginia wanted to put his adopted son into a reformatory. I don't know what the kid did. Anyway, he ended up in Montana on MRL and retired from there. I believe he's living in the Golden State now.
Snippy, his brother-in-law was Ed Sims who went to Mecca about the same time and worked that outlying helper job for years, so I am told.
The guy who writes the monthly blog, High Times on the High Iron, Joe Santucci, who is called Tuch, who was kind of a modern day boomer, spent his last years on MRL.
-- Edited by Cy Valley on Tuesday 11th of January 2022 09:47:55 AM
Our homegrown Nazi who we called Bucket head here in Philly ended up working for the MRL. Being a white supremest, it was heard he functioned well out there.
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I started ophph with nuthin, and I can safely say I have most of it left.... <img
What PhMB said. AFASRemembers MRL was a Krebs, "Scab it all out" experiment to retaliate against the UTerUS because they wouldn't negotiate crew consist. That experiment cost BNSF dearly. Then, they got unionized in a BLE, "Phukk the UTerUs" NMB election.
Guys from Greater Pipesville and Pencindiana who couldn't make it onto the Currently Fired Employees Railroad (CFE RR) roster went out to MRL. One guy from that place in OH10 went out there and either got scared (they cowboy'ed like in the olden days) or got fired. The guy who rear-ended the train near Radford while on a burner phone he left on the wrecked engine, who signed an FRA, "If you don't fine me $23,000, I'll never attempt to work for a railroad again" thought he could sneak out to MRL and not get discovered. I told him he would go to jail. I don't think he ever tried it.
Rubber rooms actually made it into Jet magazine because they violated terms of settlements the railroads and made with EEOC. Rubber rooms and similar tactics such as the fake jobs as "Painter's Helper", which Snippy was involved in were some of the worst schitt dreamed up by any RR. They also had thing called something like traveling station gangs that were supposed to live on the road and mow the grass and do upkeep on closed depots. In a lot of these tactics, the bullschitt fell upon the newest hires, even on Order Selection Lists (OSL), which were the Supreme Court approved way of merging hiring date rosters as remediation for 150 years of discrimination. Basically, the job offered had to be really and truly comparable to the position you had when furloughed.
as Cy & Snippy alluded to.. MRL didn't seem to mind hiring employees other RR's had fired (even permanently), especially if you were an engineer.. it was really bad when they 1st started up.
The word on the street at MRL's red headed step cousin the SRY (where I started my RR career) is that the BNSF was looking at buying them out too so they could run coal empties and cans from Roberts Bank back down into the US instead of using the same route they use for loads. The flooding in the Fraser Valley and Sumas / Robertson area (near Krink, I believe) has really put a damper on this thought as the damage has driven the cost up but also flood mitigation is certainly not feasible.
The prez of MRL, Mr. Derek .... I went from being a greenskeeper to a brakeman..... to assistant superintendent..to senior management... Ollman would fit right in at places like the CSX, NS, UP, BNSF as he is a total endearing individual.
So I can understand the idea of breaking the lease, how do you sell off the entire workforce who have a collective agreement in place?
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Gentlemen, we all must realize that neither side has any monopoly on sons of bitches. C.D. Howe (in Washington to resolve a shipping dispute)
Not sure any MRL employee had a contract/guarentee dont think union either. It too bad so sad for the MRL employees.
What surprised me is talk on TO about BNSF ending up with all the MRL power/rolling stock too. Thought the "Washington Group"
would re-assign MRL power to other parts Washington Group but currently BNSF stuck with disposition of a roster of motive
power of some oldies but goodies. Its also been mentioned the BNSF could recieve dollars to re-open the southern Montana route
to Amtrak.
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.
I remember the big extravaganza MRL put on when they got their 1st very own brand new real locomotive (Dash 9) in MRL blue.. They dedicated a track by the RH and gave tours of it.. had balloons tied to the guard rails and everything. this spectacle went on for a week or more. I found the whole thing entertaining..
Probly only MRL power worth saving is the fleet of SD70aces which are used used for mid-train helper service.
Every train across the passes has 4 SD70aces somewhere in the middle. Cant remember if the Livingston Locomotive
Rebuild site still open.
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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.